Anthony Schinella: Living with the 'free market'

Friday

Sep 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2008 at 4:57 AM

While driving into work last week, I just about swerved off the road when I heard President Bush unveiling his $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan.

While driving into work last week, I just about swerved off the road when I heard President Bush unveiling his $700 billion Wall Street bailout plan. If approved, along with the other bailouts, the federal reserve will basically print $1 trillion worth of money to protect the financial markets and the taxpayers of the United States, as always, will be expected to foot the bill.

Watching what has been going on in the financial markets now for a number of years, I have been truly amazed as to what these people have done. And now, they want us to bail them out for their failed policies and procedures.

I say, forget about it. You live by the free market, you die by the free market. That is essentially what economists, pundits, and supposed leaders from both political parties have been telling regular folks for a very long time. Those people who created this financial climate should have to live with it. Putting your money in the stock market is risky. It’s no different than a casino. Win or lose, the gambler has to live with the result.

Let’s look for a second at what has gone on in the last six days and compare it with a recent chunk of history.

The speculators expect us to protect them from their bad investments, crazy short-selling strategies, scheming, lying and rumors, and their volatile commodities market. They get to keep their huge salaries, commissions, golden parachutes, mansions, and Maseratis, and we get handed the bill. If it were public policy to bail out those who have been harmed by the free market, there would be precedence. But in America’s case, there isn’t.

For example, no one is bailing out the tens of thousands of workers in the journalism field being let go because most folks think news is “free” and the market doesn’t think newspapers are important anymore. No one is bailing out the tens of thousands of people in the music industry who have lost their jobs because the market is changing. No one is bailing out the tens of millions of Americans who lost their jobs because of globalization and the fact that workers in other countries will produce goods for virtually nothing. And no one is bailing out the millions of people who live in cars and under bridges, including hundreds of thousands of veterans, because of the free market.

Politically speaking, both sides have done their very best to point the finger at the other. But the fact is that this a bipartisan problem. It is one of the reasons you can’t trust bipartisanship. Both presidential candidates have advisors who have their fingerprints on this mess. When I saw Citibank’s Robert Rubin standing with Barack Obama as part of his “solution” team, the same guy who deregulated markets under President Clinton, I cringed as much as seeing all the lobbyists running John McCain's campaign.

The only person who has warned us about this for many, many years is Ralph Nader, someone I used to work for. And he, unfortunately, won’t be in the debate on Friday to tell everyone, “I told you so.”

There is, however, one positive thing about all of this: Maybe those of us who didn’t lose our shirts in the market can finally get the vacation home we have always dreamed about in one of those distressed housing markets like Miami, for example, for pennies on the dollar. But like the S&L scandal before it, the insiders will probably get to pick up all the sweet deals.

The simple truth is that this bailout is a disaster and it should be rejected. The people who created this mess should have to live with the same pain, suffering, difficulty, and just about everything else that has been foisted upon millions of Americans, at their hands. Fair is fair.

In the end, the Democrats will probably cave to Bush, as they have time and time again, and we’ll get stuck with the tab as we have time and time again. If this happens, hopefully, there will still be a country left worth living in.

Anthony Schinella is the editor of the Belmont (Mass.) Citizen-Herald. He can be reached at belmont@cnc.com.

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